Joanna Allhands is The Republic’s digital opinions editor, overseeing our opinions content on the web, in video and through social media.
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Is Joe Arpaio America’s softest sheriff?

MORNING UPDATE, FEB. 6:

Free pass: Identity theft is a crime, and Sheriff Joe Arpaio has made a career out of saying he’s tough on crime. But not, apparently, to those who steal his credit-card information. According to a KPHO report repeated by Reuters, Arpaio isn’t planning to press charges if the thief is financially struggling. Apparently, America’s self-professed toughest sheriff has a soft side.

Understood, in theory: Congress didn’t overtly kill any part of a bipartisan immigration reform effort during a Tuesday hearing. Even the guest-worker question, which has derailed previous reform attempts, received a measured and generally productive debate. This is good news for Arizona, which continually struggles to fill tough farm jobs. Though the details for overhauling temporary work programs remain sketchy, lawmakers seem to understand that this is a key part of reform. If we don’t address future flow, everything else we do now will be for naught in a few years.

Big hill to climb: Former Tempe Mayor Hugh Hallman is running for governor as a traditional candidate. That is, he isn’t accepting Clean Elections funding. But the Republican candidate also has said that he won’t accept money from political-action committees, which usually offer the big bucks necessary to conduct a statewide campaign. Hallman knows that will make his goal of raising $2 million difficult — I’d say, more like a miracle — but if he can pull it off, he’ll have built a base of grass-roots donors that other candidates would no doubt love to have.

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